It is a mystery what the 3 machine screws once held behind the rear door of my VF post. The inner box' back would be a couple of inches in and resting on the bracket hodler still in place, but I'm unaware of anything that would have been in the back here.

Even the rear door has cast-in clearances for them to be sure the machine screw heads or "tangs" don't interfere with the closing of the door

The door would seem it once had a slightly modified version of the windup bell actuator, the O'Brien doors have the locks on the edge instead of the top and the windup activator is held in with 3 screws, but on the VF door the lock is where the top screw would be on an O'Brien door, it leads me to think the case was shaped differently for these and used 2 screws instead.

Yes it did, about the mechanism at least, seems they used the same one with the 3 screw pattern, though being over the lock I don't see yet how they put that top screw in, either they didn't or they drilled and threaded the lock case for a shorter screw.The door also used flat head screws on the lock itself, the one I already have has round head screws, it was probably replaced.I already had purchased the door, so that will be answered shortly.

I won't be needing 4 hinges after all, I will be milling a set of 2 out of 1/2' x 1" solid brass bar stock on a milling machine at work patterned after the originals. One of the originals was very bent and it has a crack in it as a result, so that needs to be replaced and I'm just going to make a pair of them so they match, they are for the rear door.

The original hinges were sand-cast, no one sand casts hinges like this today, so milling them out of solid bar stock is the only real option to making new ones. A hinge manufacturer who also makes custom hinges said these would cost hundreds of dollars each for them to custom make, and take 6-8 weeks production time, not exactly very viable.

After getting the post home and set up on a rolling platform made for it, I applied the finish coats of red paint to it.

I like this shade of red and the level of gloss is good, what I did was mixed Sherwin Williams satin Cherry Tomato SW 6864 with their gloss Real Red, SW 6868 about 50/50 and it cut that excess glossiness down and since the Cherry Tomato is a little darker with no hint of purple or magenta the color is better too.

The satin was too flat and the gloss was objectionably shiny, there was also something about the Real Red I wasn't happy with, it had a very slight purple-ish or magenta hint to it, while I thought the Cherry Tomato used on another box was just a little dark even if the red was good and i wanted to go slightly lighter, so the Real Red looked like it would do it but after using it I didn't care for it. When you look at the two chips side by side and they look virtually identical, the difference is so minute but once painted on it changes a bit from the color chips.

Going back to the post before restoration, the obvious "question" that would be asked is how come I repainted this post when I prefer an as-found museum type restoration, the answer is simple- not every artifact is a candidate to be left as-found, unfortunately this one was not because of several issues:

1) The lower half and "bun" under the upper box had satin black paint slathered all over it years ago, no idea what that was all about, there was even air pockets trapped under the black paint.

2) With the build-up of paint on the base plus all the black paint, the casting details were almost completely obliterated, even the low relief "Property of the city of New York 1929" on the bottom was unreadable.

3) The original door was replaced by an ERS electronic door years ago, so no replacement mechanical door would ever match the rest of the paint and appearance and always look like it was a replacement from cobbled together parts.

4) The upper half still had it's old red paint and I liked how it looked, but unfortunately with the rest of the post painted black it looked like it was cobbled from different parts even though it wasn't. The layers of red paint was completely failing, cracking and peeling off.

5) Old "Foxy the firefighter" stickers on the sides had been painted over numerous times.

6) The access doors' "FDNY" in high 1/4" tall raised letters had so much slopped-on paint build up the letters themselves were almost undecipherable, and one door had a 8 or 9 inch long scrape through the paint and into the metal a little that looked like sliding it on a surface that had a nail sticking out, or a fork lift fork had slipped and scraped it.

Here's what the base with the black paint looked like:

And the door with the scrape:

It's pretty easy to see why this one really needed to be stripped down and repainted.

I did not use sandblasting methods to remove the paint, a sandblasting service 30 miles from here only has the course abrasive and their normal items they sandblast are tanks, farm equipment etc., their process would definitely etch the surface of the metal. I found a heat gun to soften the paint and a scraper got 90% off easily in a few hours, the rest was removed with stripper and a roto-stripper tool that worked well and doesn't damage cast-iron.

It took 8-3/4 hours to completely remove all the paint to bare metal and prime it, sandblasting wouldn't have saved much time anyway, especially considering four trips in my car to the sandblast place 30 miles away to take each half of the post there, return, then go back to pick them up when done and return, then the work of loading them in and out of the car each time.

Here's the door before and after, "before" on the right is how it came, old oil/grease, dirt, grit, and the brass parts turning green from moisture.I took it all apart, cleaned with metal cleaner, degreased and lubricated it. I replaced one missing round head brass screw with an identical one.

The sheet metal dust cover on the wind-up mechanism case was very fragile on the left side at the first bent angle, it must have had a fatigue crack as it broke just handling it, so I spent some time soldering it back together. Cleaning up the edges enough for the solder meant having totake the spots to bare new metal, but once the solder was neatly filed flat and smooth, and angled with the bend it looked fine, and the shiny brass near the the repair area will tarnish eventually and blend in. It is partially obscured by the activating lever anyway.

I took the wind-up mechanism apart, cleaned the main spring and gears, lubricated them and put it back together, now the maker's name stamp shows on it's cover plate as: "Elec. Ind. Mfg. Co. NY."

No attempt was made to polish any of the brass- it's all rough sand cast brass and was never meant to have a mirror polish appearance.

The cotter pin on one shaft and a steel pin on the main lever were removed for cleaning, and the shafts lubricated.The brass all looks clean, degreased, maintained, and has an obvious antique appearance, all without looking artificial or new with polishing/lacquering to keep it shiny.

Even the aluminum bell looks much better without making it look like it just came off the shelf at Menards by polishing it!

It took 4-1/2 hours but the door and its mechanisms were completely gone over, cleaned, lubricated and the paint removed. Now primed and the first coat of paint applied it's mounted on the post.

The lock cylinder was real hard to turn, a little solvent fixed that but I discovered someone long ago had removed all the pins and springs so that any key at all would open the door.The other door I have has a near clone lock on it to this one, the other one was made by sargent, and I found the cylinder doesn't quite fit the case so that a simple swop of cylinders could happen. The locks physically fit each others' doors but they are different and not interchangeable.I think the lock on this door I cleaned up today was by Sargent, even the keys physically fit each other's keyways, but unlike the other lock it has no name or ID on it at all.I'll have to see if a locksmith can fix the cylinder with new pins and springs so it functions as it was supposed to, the cylinder itself had the pins and springs held in by dimpling the case over each hole, some cylinders have a removable strip of sheet brass, i don't know if this "dimpled" style can be repinned, the other style can be.The alternative is carefully sliding the springs and pins in from inside and working the key in one pin at a time to hold them in place. That would require pins the correct length for the key to begin with.

I still need to do a little adjustments on the door to get it to shut squarely and lock, it has a little bit of a "binding" that seems like I'll have to file some metal off an edge to fix it, it also seems like a couple of shims are needed under the hinges to move the door over to the left slightly as well.

I liked how the original old paint on the front of the door looked and it otherwise could have been left on, but unfortunately it would never match any other post appearance wise than the exact one it was removed from, the paint would look different in every way and always look like it doesn't belong to the post it's installed on. That's another issue with parts besides fit- appearance usually also differs considerably, so it needed to be repainted to match the rest.

Here's a demo of the "anti false alarm" local warning bell, it is loud.

First time I went I specified satin and for some reason they gave me gloss, it was way too shiny so I took it back and they exchanged it for the satin but the satin was too flat and the color (cherry tomato SW 6864) was just a hair darker than I later decided matched the original better, so I went back again and bought a quart of gloss in the new color (Real red SW 6868) that I chose.

Since I had almost a whole quart of the satin Cherry Tomato and a full quart of the Real Red, I mixed up a batch sufficient to do the job, I mixed the two about 50/50 so the result would be about halfway between the too flat satin and the too glossy gloss, and the shade would be between the two.

I'm pleased with the results.For primer I just used a can of Krylon red oxide metal primer, a couple of coats, I brushed on 3 thin coats of the Sherwin-Williams paint straight from the can. If you thin the paint and spray it you probably have to spray more coats to get the coverage and color, the way I figured it these posts on the street were probably originally sprayed in 1929 but repaintings by the city crews over the years were done with a brush, at least on all the boxes I ever saw, so replicating that technique is what I had in mind to do on this, albeit I brushed on very light coats to avoid runs and drips while the city crews probably applied one heavy coat.

This paint despite being oil based enamel dries to the touch pretty quickly- within maybe 2-3 hours but needs time to harden and cure of course.

About 20 years ago I used Sherwin-Williams all surface oil based enamel on a box that I repainted, and I was very happy with the results. I went to Sherwin-Williams because they are very skilled with matching original paint colors. I brought a door in with me, and the salesperson was able to match it. The color is that nasty lime-green that was used back in the 70's on fire apparatus. This box came from a city where they painted their boxes using that color, and I wanted to keep it historically accurate (as ugly as it is.)

When at all possible I try to leave the original paint alone. As you mention a lot can be done by simple cleaning and elbow grease without damaging the original finishes. There are some cases where it's too far gone and you have to repaint.

The original paint is best left as is if it's not covered with grafitti, stickers, or is failing and peeling off. My VF post was not a candidate to keep the original paint, the top half MAYBE- but if I left the top half as it was it didn't match the bottom half which was painted over with heavy black paint, also the original door was long gone, replaced by an electronic fire/police unit, the mechanical door I bought later was not even close in paint appearance since of course it came from a completely different box. So anytime you have to replace missing parts, weld/braze the original paint doesn't work.